A bipartisan and bicameral group of legislators has introduced a bill that would create what amounts to a National Broadband Plan 2.0.

The FCC released a National Broadband Plan under then-chairman Julius Genachowski more than a decade ago.

The Proper Leadership to Align Networks (PLAN) for Broadband Act would require the President to come up with a national strategy "to close the digital divide" and a plan to implement that strategy.

The legislation stems from a Government Accountability Office report that concluded broadband efforts were "fragmented and overlapping" and recommended the creation of a broadband strategy.

The White House has not decided whether such a plan is needed or not. It has been putting tens of billions of dollars into broadband access subsidies, including pandemic-driven healthcare and distance education dollars as well as some $65 billion in infrastructure money. Some of that money is being overseen by the FCC, but most of it by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, with much of that money going to the states for them to dole out as they see fit.

The Department of Agriculture also has broadband subsidy money for connected agriculture and other rural service.

The 2010 FCC plan notwithstanding, GAO said in the report that there are some statutory limitations on aligning the current “mosaic” of programs, including differing definitions of eligible areas and broadband speeds.

In 2020 Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for an update of that 2010 plan and Blair Levin, the architect of the plan under Genachowski, agreed, saying it was long overdue.

While the NTIA in 2018 led an interagency group that reviewed those different definitions, it did not identify which statutes limited how the programs could be aligned or recommend any changes.

The GAO said change is necessary. “Without legislative proposals for Congress to consider, agencies may continue to face limitations in aligning programs to close the digital divide,” GAO concluded.

GAO's conclusions were based on its own analysis combined with interviews with stakeholders including ISPs and officials.

The legislators obviously are on the same page.

Introducing the bill were Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the Senate
Commerce Committee; Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), chair of the Communications Subcommittee; and Reps. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.).

Wicker suggested a plan was needed to prevent the programs from being "mismanaged" and not coordinated, while Luján, looking at a half-full glass, suggested it was needed to improve the coordination between federal agencies.

The FCC and NTIA this week updated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on coordinating spectrum policies, which is meant to help speed the freeing-up of spectrum for wireless broadband, among other things. 

"I am pleased that these Senate and House leaders have introduced this bill, which will require a national strategy as well as an implementation plan," said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr. "It is critical that Congress move quickly to pass this legislation, and I would encourage all federal agencies to administer their broadband programs in a manner consistent with the smart policies included in this bill.” ■

The COVID-19 crisis "is shining a light" on five "critical gaps" in broadband and national emergency policies, including issues raised in the 9/11 Commission Report and the National Broadband Plan, according to Blair Levin, who headed the FCC group that produced the NBP a decade ago. He summarized the challenges as:

• Performance gaps.
• Coverage gaps.
• Security gaps.
• Utilization gaps.
• Information gaps.

Levin, who is now a nonresident senior fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, proposes that a "new initiative should take what we’ve learned, both from the current crisis and otherwise, and use it to address" these critical gaps.

In a recent interview, Levin expanded on the points he addressed on the 10th anniversary of the release of the FCC National Broadband Plan in mid-March, which coincided with the beginning of the national COVID-19 lockdown.

Related: Levin: Coronavirus Will Expose Broadband Successes, Shortcomings

Wordsmith Levin rhetorically asked "Will We Mind the Gaps?" as he focused on using COVID-19 lessons to implement new broadband solutions in the health and communications infrastructure.

"There are urgent tasks for network operators that include ensuring peak capacity remains available, expanding coverage where possible and keeping customers on-line, by, for example, voluntarily suspending disconnections for late or non-payment," Levin said.

He cited the immense changes since 2010, notably the average broadband download speed of 4.1 Mbps a decade ago - totally inadequate for today's needs - which has now increased to nearly 140 Mbps, used by "tens of millions" of customers. Levin also mentioned FCC policies that have reallocated underused wireless frequencies for National Public Safety networks, which have been valuable in the current situation. Levin (with characteristic humility) contended those developments, stemming from the NBP, are bellwethers of what must be done in the next of phase of policy making.

The major challenges will come "after the crisis," when public and private authorities must collaboratively and "rationally" analyze the results of the stresses of the COVID-19 crisis and "take whatever action they require." He told me that, as with the NBP, policy development will involve Congress, the White House, local governments and "particularly ... private enterprises," with a nod to the need that companies understand and align the incentives in a structured plan.

Related:  Let’s Get America’s Internet Nonusers Online Now

Finding Footing Across the Gaps

Levin's analysis and recommendation lay out paths across each of the gaps he has identified that are being spotlighted through the COVID-19 crisis.

Performance gaps. "We’ll need a deep data dive to determine whether bottlenecks occurred, and if so, where and why? Actual usage data should also inform a fresh look at how we allocate spectrum between licensed, unlicensed and shared regimes." He cites the "the voluntary lending of unutilized spectrum," and asks if such policies should be adopted for other situations?

Coverage gaps. "The current crisis underscores [that] problems remain both in terms of access—sparsely-populated areas with no high-speed providers—and adoption—households that, for different reasons, do not subscribe to broadband even when it is available." Levin believes that his proposed initiative should collect accurate data from the COVID crisis to update, recapitalize, and improve universal service programs, which would support the goal of offering broadband services to unserved and underserved communities.

Security gaps. "As we move more office work, education, and socializing to the home on a permanent basis, we need to reevaluate network security." Although Levin acknowledges that individual companies should determine their own security requirements, some services - especially telehealth and public education - may require national standards. He also contends that small businesses would benefit from detailed best practices, using experiences learned during the COVID-19 crisis.

Utilization gaps. There's an unspoken digital divide between the possibility and reality of "how our communications networks could be used to improve outcomes in education, health care and other public services, and what we are actually doing," Levin contends. He expects that the COVID crisis "is likely to unleash ... innovation, particularly with telehealth, telecommuting, and online education," adding that, "Evaluating what worked and what didn’t can help close the divide between our current reality and the potential benefits broadband can bring."

Information gaps. "We need to learn how, in any future crisis, our society can reduce the pollution of misinformation," Levin concludes, then adds a political zing: "We need to understand why the federal government, at least initially, did such a poor job of providing needed, trusted, and relevant information about the pandemic itself." He suggests that there should have been a website available in February or March where a person "could put in one’s zip code and immediately learn the status of the infections in the surrounding area, as well as where to be tested and treated."

Although Levin declined to reveal his own plans for being part of any follow-up initiative to analyze the COVID telecom after-math, he emphasized that, "We’ll need similar evaluations of hospital systems and other strategic national assets."

"It’s already clear that we must do even more to bring affordable, abundant bandwidth to all," he concluded, refraining his decade-old plea. "We must assess anew, based on new facts and new realities, how we safeguard life-saving communications technologies, improve key applications in government, health care, education, and other industries."

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has unveiled the National Broadband Plan for the Future Act, which would direct the FCC to update its 2009 National Broadband Plan with an eye toward how the coronavirus pandemic has, and will, affect that plan. 

As Markey pointed out in introducing the bill this week, he was instrumental in the creation of the initial plan via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. 

The new bill would require the updated plan to assess the progress made in the last decade, come up with "detailed proposals" for increased internet access, and gauge how the virus and its impact on how Americans "live, work and learn online" will reshape the country. 

Markey said the plan had laid out a vision of connecting all Americans, but the virus had shown that vision has yet to become a reality. 

"Now more than ever, we see how necessary robust and affordable broadband is to the future of education, employment, medical care, and commerce in America," said Markey. "We need to update the National Broadband Plan so we can continue to invest in our nation’s future by bringing the power and promise of broadband to us all.” 

“An update of the 2010 National Broadband Plan is long overdue, and with the COVID Crisis demonstrating the importance of abundant, affordable broadband to economic resiliency and social progress, such an update is also essential,” said Blair Levin, senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the architect of the plan under then FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.